The Weakest Link
Elite Social Networks in Republican Italy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20042990 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kathryn Lomas (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Pages | 197-213 |
| Publication date | 2012-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Processes of Integration and Identity Formation in the Roman Republic (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/9789004229600_013 |
| OpenAlex | W2505537492 |
| ISBN | 9789004229600 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
This chapter reviews the evidence for interconnections and social networks between members of the Roman and Italian elite with reference to the early and middle years of the first century BC. It examines possible strategies for creating, maintaining and exploiting such connections and focuses on two types of relationships, which may have operated in different ways, but which seem to have been equally vital to the relations between high-status individuals and families from non-Roman backgrounds. Vicinitas or neighbourliness, is a geographically-determined relationship which implied some degree of social obligation between people from the same area. Hospitium or guest-friendship was a means of formalising relationships of reciprocal hospitality between individuals and families from different areas or communities, often extended over many generations. It was a long-established feature of aristocratic behaviour in Italy, although the nature and importance of hospitium in linking Romans and Italians may have changed during this period. Keywords:aristocratic behaviour; geographically-determined relationship; Hospitium; interconnections; Italy; Roman elite; social networks; Vicinitas
Computer network · Elite · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Computer Science · Law
| Citations per year | 0.67 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2014 - 2025 (12) |
| Highly cited | No |